Spinning Babies
by Dumbothepatronus
Summary: Ginny was so sure that this was going to be her last baby, right up until she was born. Harry/Ginny, canon compliant.


Written for Quidditch League

Falmouth Falcons

BEATER 2: Six of Swords — Upright: Transition, Leaving Behind, Moving On

Optional Prompts:

[song] Boomerang — Royal Republic

[location] St Mungo's

**Big thank you to Elizabeth, Bex, and Lucy for betaing this for me! **

A/N: Babies are born with a rooting reflex, which causes them to adorably turn their head and open their mouth when being held close to a warm body when they are hungry.

* * *

The maternity ward at St. Mungo's Hospital was overbearingly twee. Ginny rolled her eyes at the border of babies wearing daisy petal headdresses, waving at patrons from terra cotta flower pots.

"Are you sure you don't want to find out the sex? If it's a girl, won't you want to stock up on pink things?" Harry offered her his arm and helped her up onto the exam table that stood in the middle of the room.

"I can always charm the boy things pink. Besides, we found out with Albus and James. This is our last chance to be surprised." Ginny caressed the growing lump in her belly. As hard as it was to believe that this was the last time she would watch it blossom, she was ready to move on from the "baby stage" of parenthood and reclaim her Quidditch career before it was too late.

Harry crossed his arms. "If she has red hair, she's going to look awful in pink."

"You can go on a shopping spree if it's a girl, but it's probably going to be a boy. Look how many Mum had before she got me." Ginny shuddered at the thought of enduring seven pregnancies.

"Oh, look, Harry; he's kicking." A soft glow warmed her heart as he held his hand over her belly and a hard little knob pushed against his fingers. Blasted pregnancy hormones, making her think she was going to miss this. That's all this was—definitely not second thoughts about closing up the baby shop. She was ready, dang it. So why did every little kick and squirm seem to spin her right back through this endless loop of doubt?

X

"So, how long do we have to boogie before it's time to floo your mum and high-tail it to St. Mungos?" Harry grinned and spun Ginny across the floor. The sticky June humidity clung to the corners of the room despite the late hour.

Ginny grimaced. "Well, seeing as your children are chronically late, maybe… an entire week?" She let go of Harry's hand to scratch angrily at her swollen thighs. This was one symptom she'd be happy to see the back of—the unbearingly uncomfortable final weeks of pregnancy. She never wanted to go through _these_ again.

Harry's eyebrows raised in alarm. "You're going to spin this baby out?"

"They say exercise can trigger labor. And don't you think it's about time little Lily or Fred made their appearance?" She glared down at her belly and gave it a gentle nudge. "Especially since they were _due yesterday?_"

"Yeah. You are looking pretty round, Baby. No, not… " Harry's eyes went wide with horror. "I mean. The baby is making you… round. Which is normal. And very… lovely?"

"Keep digging that grave deeper. I'll be sure to remember this moment when I'm squeezing your hand in the delivery room. I might even manage to break some fingers this time."

"But if you break my fingers, how will I rock the baby while you sleep?"

"Magic." Ginny held her finger up to stop Harry's seventeenth revolution of the pair around Grimmauld Place's second informal living room. She thought she felt—yes. There it was. Her hands rested on her belly as it grew hard as a rock, the strong sensation seizing her uterine muscles for half a minute before releasing them again.

"Was that…?" Harry's eyes widened.

"It's a start. Spin me around again—maybe we'll trigger another one!" There was no point in rushing to St. Mungos yet. If they went now, the healers and sterile rooms were sure to scare the contractions away.

So they kept dancing; spinning across the boards of the ancient wooden floor until the contractions were stronger, longer, and regular.

"You're making me dizzy! Let's take a break." Ginny reclined in a cozy chair as Harry waved his wand to produce a glass of water. She closed her eyes as another wave of birthing pains swept through her. "I think that's enough dancing for now."

It was a good thing, too—the insomnia and the awful swelling of the last few weeks was driving her spare enough that she was about to resort to dubious old witches spells if this didn't work, and she really would rather not.

Fortunately, it soon became evident that she had, in fact, managed to dance herself into labor, and ten hours later she was cradling Lily Luna Potter while Harry beamed at them, brighter than the sun despite the sleep clinging to the corners of his eyes.

It wasn't until later that night, once Ginny had achieved several hours of dreamless sleep and the hospital was still and peaceful, that the full force of it hit her: this was the last time.

She ran her fingers over Lily's flawless baby skin as she suckled at her breast for a midnight meal. She was so perfect. The itty bitty fingernails, the way she fit in the crook of her arm, the way she rooted when she was ready to eat; all of it was overwhelmingly beautiful. Tears sprung to Ginny's eyes at the thought that this would be the end of it. Once Lily grew out of the newborn stage, she would never again hold her own barely-earthside child in her arms. She would never again gaze upon her baby's face for the first time—never again nurse a newborn with her own life-giving milk. That stage in her life would come to a close, and she wasn't sure that she was ready for it. How could she be, when it was this beautiful?

As she swiped a silent tear from her cheek with her fingers, Harry's eyes fluttered open and met hers. He swung his legs from the third cushion of the hospital room's lumpy couch and stretched his arms above his head.

"Need me to take over? You must be exhausted."

Ginny tightened her hold on Lily as Harry shuffled over to her bedside. "I thought I was so sure. With every week, every prenatal appointment, every morning I woke up nauseous, I kept telling myself it was for the last time. But now…"

She sniffled and ran her fingers through Lily's downy hair. "Now I can't—I can't let go."

A small smile played at the corner of Harry's lips. "So, you're saying you want another one?"

"No. No, I don't think I do… but at the same time I can't imagine not doing this again. What if we did have another one, Harry? Would it have my hair and your eyes? Would it be a spitfire like me, or more relaxed like it's older brother? What would we be missing out on, by closing up shop forever?"

"I don't know, love. You don't have to decide right now. Give it some time."

Ginny dropped her head onto the stiff hospital pillow. "You're right. It's probably just nargles."

"Nargles! That's it, I'm cancelling our subscription to The Quibbler." Harry lifted Lily, who had finished nursing and was now using Ginny's chest as a pillow, and cradled her in his arms. "Get some sleep."

Ginny didn't need telling twice; she was, after all, exhausted. But even as she drifted off, images of tiny newborns with Harry's messy black hair floated through her mind.

X

September had always been a month of change for Ginevra Potter. As she clung to each tiny baby onesie and folded it gently into the cardboard box on her living room floor, she remembered the wistful sadness she felt as a child as the summer faded into fall. She'd watched as her older brothers paraded off to Hogwarts, leaving a quieter house in their wake. Every year the stillness grew, until it was only herself, alone with her parents and the family ghoul.

This precious red-and-gold striped onesie had been a gift from George when James was born. She fought the stinging behind her eyelids as she laid it on top of a lacy blue dress, from Fleur especially for her first-born—her only—daughter. She was ready to leave her childbearing years behind. She was ready to donate the maternity clothes and do away with the crib, as soon as Lily had finished using it.

But the end of this season was going to lead to an empty house, and Ginny wasn't sure if she was ready for that. Eleven years from now, on a September day just like this one, she would put James, Albus, and Lily onto the Hogwarts train and come home to silence.

As she added the final outgrown outfit to the box, she stood and sealed it shut with her wand before pecking Harry on the cheek and apparating to St. Mungos with her donation. As the mediwitch wrapped her fingers around the bottom of the box to accept it, Ginny tightened hers.

"You don't have to let go yet, dearie, if you're not quite ready." The matronly woman smiled knowingly at Ginny.

Ginny summoned every inch of fire and courage she possessed and dropped her hands to her sides. "No. It's time. Someone else needs it more than me."

She paused to glance at the leaves on the maple tree in her front garden on her way back home. Their tips were just barely tinged with red and orange. In just a few weeks, the tree would blossom into magnificence; it would be beautiful in its change, and so would she.


End file.
